TOTAL UNIQUE IPs: 46700070This total is not a simple sum of the counts above. It is a list of unique IP addresses that have connected across all releases.

Currently, there is no reliable way to determine the total number of Linux users, or even count the total number of users of any Linux distribution which does not have a mandatory per user registration process.Anyone who tells you otherwise may be misinformed, dishonest, or trying to sell you something.

The numbers above do not represent a total user count for Fedora. We are counting IP addresses because that is the only thing we can reliably measure. OEM shipping numbers, application popularity contests, and other "estimates" all have intrinsic error factors as well. Without a 1:1 sales figure or registration process, user counting is a difficult problem to solve. Our accuracy section below has a discussion of what's wrong with IP number counts, too.

When you hear someone estimate a count of users, the right questions to ask are:

Although you do need appropriate access to our logging hosts to gather the data, our Infrastructure team does welcome people who want to participate in their work.

Accuracy of metrics

The numbers above, for yum, represent unique IP addresses that reach our update server, not simply downloads. We believe it is reasonable to equate a "new IP address checking in" with "a new installation of Fedora", with the following caveats:

Users who have dynamic IP addresses will likely be counted multiple times, which inflates the number by some amount.

Users who are behind NAT or corporate proxies will not be counted at all.

The anecdotal evidence that we receive from different groups, companies, and organizations suggests that group (2) is significantly larger than group (1). As such, we believe that the true numbers in the field are higher than the numbers on this page.

For a more thorough discussion and enlightening information about the measurement of Fedora's userbase, refer to this blog entry by Jef Spaleta.

Why is the Fedora 8 count so high?

We believe this is due to the high concentration of Fedora 8 images on Amazon EC2. We may see additional changes with Fedora 14 and later as that release is expected to be available on EC2 on release day.

Smolt Data

Smolt is Fedora's hardware profiling project. It is an opt-in database that tracks unique installations of Fedora, and various details about that install. People who install to runlevel 5 will be able to opt-in during firstboot, but people who install to runlevel 3 will have to install the smolt client via yum and manually register.

BitTorrent

The following table shows the number of downloads that have been made over BitTorrent. This table shows downloads only through trackers connected to the official torrent server.